MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 3 Sept 11

• Libya Mission (1)  Welcome home, HMCS Charlottetown, from “Fighting The Gaddafi Regime” – good to see you and yours back safe and sound – more from the media here.
• Libya Mission (2)  “Canada must help Libya make sure its weapons of mass destruction don’t get into the wrong hands, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Friday …. “There’s significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical weapons that have been secure for a number of years, but we want to make sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands,” Baird said. “So there’s another area where we can help demilitarize a country so hopefully it’ll have a peaceful future.” ….”
• Libya Mission (3)  An editorial isn’t happy with the PM’s speech to the troops in Sicily this week.  “…. it’s well worth thinking about what kind of role we want our nation to have in the world, and how we want to be seen by other nations. With our presence in Afghanistan and Libya — despite whatever good those missions may have achieved — we have still clearly moved from a country best known for supplying troops for peacekeeping missions to a nation willing to ride with countries that see interventionist military missions as the way to go in international affairs. In his own way, Harper referenced that change in his speech as well: “They used to claim that in international affairs, and you’ve heard the quote many times: ‘Canada punched above its weight.’ Well, to punch above your weight, you first have to be able to punch. And that is what you have done here.” It is more than a little unsettling, and Canadians should rightfully question whether this is the direction we wish to head ….”  Note to writer: without being able to engage in full combat operations (translation: being able to shoot and maybe kill if needed), peacekeepers can’t do their job fully. It’s sorta like a cop without a gun – some work is doable, but the ultimate sanction to get all sides to play nice is not there.
• 9/11 Plus Ten (1)  Let’s not forget the Canadians killed in the 9/11 attack ten years ago.
• 9/11 Plus Ten (2)  “On Sept. 11, 2001, Angus Watt walked into the Canadian NORAD regional headquarters at CFB Winnipeg at about 7:30 a.m., just back from a two-week leave. A career air force man, he was a brigadier general who, on that day, was the operations officer for the entire air force. Within an hour, one of his staff told him to turn on the news. A plane had struck the World Trade Centre in New York. “Of course, the first thought was ‘What a tragic accident. ‘There just didn’t seem to be any other explanation at the time.” “Then the second one hit.” Within 30 minutes, the operations centre, normally manned by a skeletal crew, was fully staffed. The secure room features display screens that monitor air traffic and connect NORAD and governments. But even with the most sophisticated tracking systems, the military officers were forced to make life-or-death decisions on incomplete information ….”
• The Leslie Report/CF Reorg  CDS further refines his position on the report. “Canada’s top soldier says a report calling for personnel reductions needs further study to ensure the recommendations won’t hurt the military’s ability to carry out operations. According to media reports, Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie wrote a review calling for savings of $1 billion annually by reorganizing the Canadian Forces and chopping up to 11,000 personnel. Gen. Walt Natynczyk, the chief of defence staff, says while he believes it’s a strong report, he’ll need to consider the impact of reducing the number of full-time reservists or contractors hired to replace personnel sent to serve overseas. Natynczyk says he doesn’t want to implement cuts that will hurt the military’s ability to fulfil its commitments abroad. “I knew the ideas would be novel. I knew the ideas would be contentious and I accept the report,” he said. “From my point of view, it’s a very good report. It’s a question now of parsing through it. What can we do in the short-term? What needs more study? What I don’t want is to recommend a cut to the government that has a second-order effect that affects our operational capability.” ….”
• Afghanistan (1)  A Canadian General appears to be one of several NATO types who tried to get Afghan military hospital corruption (patients having to bribe staff to food, meds) cleared up (PDF of article here if link doesn’t work).  “…. (Afghan army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Sher Mohammed) Karimi was invited to attend an Afghan shura, a traditional meeting, at the hospital with Canadian Brigadier Gen. David Neasmith, the assistant commander for army development at the NTM-A. NATO officials pressed Gen. Karimi to address the problem of staff absenteeism and missing medicine, a U.S. mentor who was present says. But Afghan hospital and army officials who attended the meeting steered the conversation away from such issues and asked for raises and promotions, the mentor says. As weeks passed without progress, the mentors say they assembled more evidence of neglect, including detailed medical charts and photos showing emaciated patients and bedsores a foot long and so deep that bones protruded from them. In an Oct. 4 document emailed by the mentors to Gen. Neasmith, they complained about the hospital’s intensive-care unit, among other issues: “The most dynamic and ill affected is the ICU, whereby favoritism, ambivalence, incompetence coupled with understaffing lead to the untimely deaths of patients daily, occasionally several times per day.” …. By mid-December (2010), Gen. Yaftali, the Afghan army’s surgeon-general, was moved out of his job without explanation—after the coalition’s commander at the time, Gen. David Petraeus, personally raised the problems at the hospital during a meeting with President Karzai, people familiar with the matter said. The hospital has seen major improvements since then ….”
• Afghanistan (2a)  Combat tour’s still over (via the CF Info-Machine).
• Afghanistan (2b)  Combat tour’s still over (via the CF Info-Machine).
• Afghanistan (3)  Packing Team boss has links to northwestern Ontario.
• Big military cleanup projects coming to Newfoundland.  “The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, along with the Honourable Peter Penashue, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, today announced three new projects valued at $62 million for environmental remediation work at 5 Wing Goose Bay …. Since the Second World War, 5 Wing Goose Bay has had a continuous international military presence, which has brought significant socio-economic benefits and stability for the local communities. The three new projects include the removal of fuel and contaminants from the ground at the Survival Tank Farm, the Former Hydrant Area, and the Dome Mountain sites. Together, these three projects represent $62 million in contracts at 5 Wing Goose Bay, and create 335 jobs in the Happy Valley-Goose Bay community, and throughout Labrador ….”  More details in the Backgrounder document here, and in media coverage here.
• Way Up North  OP Nanook 2011 wraps up.
• Defence Minister making an announcement in Halifax Tuesday.
• Helping Kids of the Fallen  More on the Canada Company offering scholarships to children of CF members killed on duty here and here.

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MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 24 May 11

• “More troops headed to Quebec’s Montérégie region overnight as water levels in the Richelieu River returned to a historic high. Defence Minister Peter MacKay said last night that 250 reserve forces at CFB Valcartier had been ordered back to the region to help with the flood relief effort. That will double the number of military personnel in the region to 500, confirming the number quoted by Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who returned to the region earlier Monday. The Richelieu hit its highest level in more than a century on May 6, and is expected to rise another 20 centimetres by Tuesday ….”  More on OP Lotus here.
• “NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan thanked Canadian taxpayers and praised Canadian combat troops Monday for having “sacrificed greatly” to “dramatically improve” Kandahar since arriving to fight the Taliban in 2006. “The achievements of the past year have been particularly impressive,” Gen. David Petraeus said during a three-hour visit with a large group of Canadian, American and Afghan troops and civilians at a small district centre in Canada’s battle space to the west of Kandahar City. “What has been achieved is that a place that used to be (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar’s hometown and used to be a Taliban stronghold is now a stronghold of Afghan security forces with Afghan governance … Canada has contributed significantly to all of this.” It may have been Gen. Petraeus’s last visit with Canadian troops, who are to end combat operations in a few weeks. Gen. Petraeus is also leaving Afghanistan. He is President Barack Obama’s nominee to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency ….”
• “What possesses a Canadian dental surgeon to trade in his scrubs and scalpels for nine months in the Kandahari desert mentoring Afghan troops in counter-insurgency tactics? “Most people find it hard to relate to,” Capt. Luong Phuc Nguyen of 4 Royal 22nd Regiment admitted with a laugh. “I am losing a lot of money and not furthering my career.” That goes double for the 37-year old dentist’s father, who is a pediatrician and his mother, who is a pharmacist. “My parents are from Vietnam,” he said. “My grandfather fought the French and the Communists. They stayed there until a few days before the fall of Saigon. When I was almost two years old, I was on the cover of Newsweek. “So my parents understand my patriotism. But they have had a hard time understanding why someone with my career would want to interrupt it. The prospect of combat is scary for them.” ….”
• Matthew Dawe, 1980-2007, R.I.P.:  “For military …. family, losing a son just part of the sacrifice of duty”
• Taliban Propaganda Watch:  Taliban spokesperson denies reports Mullah Omar has been killed.
• “A Canadian brigadier general who was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in an exchange program is headed back to his motherland, while another Canadian officer will replace him. Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay was the first general officer from a foreign country to take part in the exchange at Lewis-McChord. Officers and other soldiers will say goodbye to him at a ceremony Tuesday afternoon. Tremblay had been assigned to I Corps since August 2009, deployed with the unit on its Iraq deployment, and moves on to become commandant of the Royal Military College of Canada. “I think in life there is a time for everything,” Tremblay, who recently served as I Corps chief of staff, said in a press release. “And now it’s time to go back home.” He will be replaced by Brig. Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier, another Canadian, who will deploy this summer with I Corps Headquarters to Kabul, Afghanistan. Lanthier previously went to Afghanistan as a commander with a Canadian Army task force in 2006 ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1):  “As part of Lockheed Martin’s mission to Québec organized by Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED), Aéro Montréal is delighted with the holding of various meetings between Lockheed Martin managers responsible for the F-35 procurement program and many Québec aerospace companies. During a three-day visit, the American company held 50 B2B meetings and toured the facilities of many key, pre-selected players from Québec’s aerospace industry. These meetings flowed from a mission to Lockheed Martin’s plant in Fort Worth in December 2010 in which Aéro Montréal participated. They aim to position new potential suppliers in the global supply chain of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jet ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (2):  “United States defence giant Lockheed Martin will open its doors a little this week to showcase its latest aviation technology as part of a public-relations program partly in response to growing fears among politicians in the U.S. and Canada that its multi-billion-dollar F-35 fighter program is running well over budget. QMI Agency is the only Canadian news outlet invited on the international media tour. Beginning Tuesday with sit-down interviews here with some of the defence firm’s top executives, Lockheed Martin will showcase its unmanned cargo helicopter and helicopter production facility in New York state before taking reporters to Fort Worth, Texas, to tour the F-16 and F-35 production facilities ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (3):  “With the Conservative Party election victory on 2 May, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is now free to finalise the long-term military modernisation strategy – dubbed Canada First – that was unveiled three years ago. The document calls for yet more purchases of airlifters, helicopters and unmanned aircraft systems in the near term, with fighters and maritime patrol ships to follow ….”
• A Canadian shipyard resumes talking to an Italian company about a takeover. “Davie Yards has announced that it has obtained an order from the Québec Superior Court extending the stay of proceedings ordered by the Court to July 7, 2011, the whole pursuant to the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. Davie is continuing its discussions with Fincantieri – Cantieri Navali Italiani and DRS Technologies Canada, a Finmeccanica company, regarding the proposed acquisition of the shipyard by an entity that will be majority-owned by Fincantieri. On May 8, 2011, Davie’s yard workers accepted with a strong majority of 93 percent the proposal for a five-year collective agreement presented by the consortium led by Fincantieri ….”
• “Canadian aircraft sent to Haiti to help in the aftermath of last year’s devastating earthquake suffered mechanical problems that left some sitting idle for days as they awaited replacement parts, according to military reports. Six Griffon helicopters and one Sea King went to the Caribbean country within 48 hours of the Jan. 12, 2010, disaster to help ship humanitarian aid into communities that were extensively damaged by the 7.3-magnitude quake. But situation reports covering the two-month mission show that at times, up to three of the six Griffons were unserviceable because of breakdowns, a lack of parts and inspections. The documents say that the inability to get replacement parts was one of the greatest challenges in Haiti, as flights delivering military hardware into the country weren’t adequately prioritized ….”
• Khadr Boy (1a):  “Convicted terrorist Omar Khadr won’t get any time shaved off his eight-year prison term after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a request for clemency to cut his sentence in half. Defence lawyers for the Toronto-born Canadian had asked the high court for mercy based on what they say was a flawed sentencing hearing at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay last fall. The request by his lawyers is considered standard procedure, the last legal motion in a case that began nearly nine years ago when the trained teenaged al-Qaida operative killed a U.S. soldier. The Supreme Court – as usual – gave no reasons for denying the request ….”
• Khadr Boy (1b):  “Convicted terrorist Omar Khadr will know in two weeks whether he will get his eight-year prison term cut in half, his lead U.S. lawyer says. Lt.-Col Jon Jackson said there was some confusion about a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday over the Toronto-born Canadian’s request for mercy based on what his lawyers say was a flawed sentencing hearing at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay last fall. The request by his lawyers is considered standard procedure, the last legal motion in a case that began nearly nine years ago when the trained teenaged al-Qaida operative killed a U.S. soldier. But the request will be decided by Vice-Admiral Bruce MacDonald in as little as two weeks ….”
• Khadr Boy (1c):  “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday finally ruled on whether to hear a years-old bid by Omar Khadr to have a part of his case reviewed — some seven months after his plea deal agreement renounced all claims he had against the U.S. government. A majority of Supreme Court justices denied the review petition, which was wrapped in with similar claims by other terror suspects held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ….”
• This from the Pakistani media:  “The Canadian government has sought help from the Pakistani government in locating and arresting two Canadian students of Afghan descent who are suspected of having joined the Taliban and al Qaeda. Pakistan received the Canadian requests through Interpol for help in the arrest of Maiwand Yar, 27, and Farid Imam, 30. At least one of the young men was reported to be a mechanical engineering student at the University of Manitoba. The Canadian government suspects that they plan to join the Taliban insurgents fighting Nato troops in Afghanistan. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the arrest warrants for Yar and Imam are the result of a four-year national security criminal investigation known as Project Darken. “These warrants are the result of a lengthy and thorough national security criminal investigation involving key partners throughout Canada and the US,” stated Assistant Commissioner Bill Robinson of the RCMP ….”  More here.
• “The Pakistani-American who spent months casing Mumbai ahead of the 2008 terror attacks told a jury Monday that Pakistan’s spy service supports the terrorist group he worked with on the deadly siege. David Coleman Headley testified at the terror trial here of Tahawwur Rana, a 50-year-old Pakistani-Canadian who co-owns a house in Kanata with his family. He told the court that Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) provided financial, military and moral support to the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). “I assumed these groups operated under the same umbrella -they co-ordinated with each other,” Headley told the jury ….”